December 30, 2011 – Businesswire — Tegal Corporation (NASDAQ:TGAL) awarded patents to multiple bidders for three of the four bid lots of Tegal’s nanolayer deposition (NLD) Patent Portfolio recently offered for sale for an aggregate consideration of approximately $4M. To date, approximately $3.6M has been received.
Tegal sold over 30 patents from the NLD portfolio, Lots 1-3, covering pulsed-chemical vapor deposition (CVD), plasma-enhanced atomic-layer deposition (PEALD) and NLD. NLD is a bridge technology between the high throughput of CVD and highly conformal ALD. Buyers were primarily equipment manufacturers.
Lot 4 of the portfolio, covering copper barrier and low-k dielectric technology, is being discussed with IC device manufacturers, according to Robert Ditizio, chief technologist, Tegal.
Tegal offered the patent portfolio for sale earlier this year in an effort to complete the divestment of its semiconductor capital equipment assets.
In March 2010, Tegal sold its legacy thin-film etch and physical vapor deposition (PVD) product lines to OEM Group, Inc. of Gilbert AZ, and in February 2011, sold its deep reactive ion etch (DRIE) assets to SPTS of Newport, Wales, UK.
Tegal Corporation enables emerging technologies in microprocessors, advanced memory, LEDs, and MEMS devices. Visit www.tegal.com.